It's Only The End of The World
by droidgirl
Summary: When Hell comes to LA, Penny becomes involved in a game she could never have imagined existed. Sheldon/Penny. Content based on BtVS, A:TS, Angel Post Series Comics and Buffy Season 8 Comics
1. Chapter 1

**Such a Lovely Place**

* * *

Disclaimer: All characters are the property of CBS, UPN, Fox, Dark Horse Comics and IDW Comics. No profit is being made from this work of fanfiction.

* * *

There was another diner once, before Penny met Sheldon and Leonard, before meeting Kurt even, in downtown LA. Everyone wore cute checkered uniforms surrounded by not-so-cute runaways, prostitutes and pimps. No one had told her it was a bad part of town to be in, but then again, it wasn't as if she even knew anyone yet, who could have warned her.

Eleven months of serving reheated pie and stale coffee later, a new girl named Anne joined their little team. From the deadened look in her eyes, Penny wondered what she was running from, but never asked, because it was always the same: rapist father, drug addicted boyfriend, bruises that couldn't be explained away, both seen and unseen…she was sick of hearing about it, when there was nothing she could do for them.

No, Penny was simply going to focus on getting into a better life she knew was waiting for her.

* * *

The club was loud, and the people were beautiful. This was LA as she had pictured it on her bus ride down from Omaha; it was everything she had imagined and more. Flipping her hair back, she toyed with the stem of her wine glass, grateful that she was spending a night away from her shitty apartment and her crappy street, together with some girls she had met at an audition two days ago. One by one, they had all disappeared on the arms of the assorted boys who plied them with alcohol before leading them to into the almost secluded booths for groping sessions. Not Penny. She was better than that, better than the boys in their khaki pants and cotton shirts, pawing clumsily at women they had no chance with when said women were sober.

As she expected (with all the confidence of a nineteen year old blonde girl who fit in size four jeans), the man she was waiting for showed up. Or at least, the _kind _of man she had been waiting for was approaching her, pushing through the crowd to get to her side. As if she was the only one in the crowd worth his time and attention. The clothes he wore looked expensive and well cut even to her inexperienced eyes. When he smiled, his teeth looked perfect and his cheekbones looked like chiseled marble.

"Buy you a drink?" he asked. Not waiting for her response, he signaled to the bartender to bring her another glass of wine.

"Of course." She nodded belatedly, imagining that she looked and sounded sophisticated all at once. Secretly, she wondered if he would offer her a starring role in some project he was working on by the end of their evening. He certainly looked like the type who had that kind of power, and she told herself she had no illusions as to what she ought to be doing with men like that, if fame was what she wanted.

"My name's Sam." He told her, bending close enough to brush his lips against her ear.

"Penelope," she replied, thinking it sounded like such a mature, womanly name. Nothing like Penny, from Omaha.

When he asked if they could go back to her place much later, she didn't hesitate and instead, planted a kiss on his cool lips.

* * *

Penny sobbed on the floor of her own apartment, pinned in place by a cold, solid body. She didn't want to die in the cheap polyester dress she wore. Until two hours ago, she had convinced herself she looked elegant and sexy, rather than cheap and whorish, but she'd always known the truth.

Point is, she didn't want to die, period, but feeling the ridges of his face (Oh God, what was wrong with his face?), the sharp stab of his teeth as they pierced the skin of her neck, informed her that she didn't quite have a choice in the matter. She was going to die, far from home, from anyone who gave a shit, in an outfit that made her look like a slut.

Closing her eyes, she whimpered piteously. Until she realized that the weight that had been holding her down was being abruptly yanked off her.

"I always thought necking was a second date thing." a girl's voice said.

Blinking, Penny struggled to sit up, and watched as her co-worker Anne kicked her date out her front door. By the ass. Their eyes met.

"Hey, aren't you…" Anne asked, frowning slightly.

"Yeah. Do you live next door?" Penny asked in a daze.

"Wish I could say 'no' but…"

They were interrupted by Sam launching himself back through the doorway, where her front door was hanging by its hinges.

"One second," Anne held up a finger, drawing out a small, slim object from her back pocket. Penny caught Sam's horrified expression as he realized he couldn't stop his forward momentum, right before he crashed into the pointy end of what looked like a wooden stake. Looking up at Anne, he mouthed the word 'why', and exploded in a cloud of dust.

"Because I'm the Slayer. That's what I do," Anne murmured to herself.

There was a moment of silence as Penny stared at the space where Sam had been, her mouth agape.

"Umm…so. Nice dress." Anne reached out a hand to Penny. After another beat, the latter took her proffered arm uncertainly.

"I look like a slut." Penny sniffed as she stood up, straightening her outfit.

Anne opened and shut her mouth. Finally, she looked away uncomfortably.

"What the hell was that?"

"That was uh…would you buy it if I said it was a trick of the light?" Anne asked, tucking her wooden stick back into her pocket, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

"Right." Penny nodded, placing her hand against the wound on her neck. "I suppose him trying to bite me and suck my blood, that was a trick of light too?"

"If you want it to be, sure." Anne replied, looking ready to bolt out the door she had obviously destroyed trying to rescue her neighbour.

"Please," Penny was surprised how steady her voice was. "Just tell me what the hell happened, because it sure looked like you murdered a guy, except he wasn't really a guy at all."

"Vampires exist and the things that go bump in the night are trying to kill you." The other girl blurted out.

"Oh." Penny considered. "Ok. Why didn't you just say so?"

Anne cracked a small smile, which looked out of place on her usually solemn, sad face. "Listen, we can talk more tomorrow. Right now, I have a…um…I have to be somewhere."

"More people to save?" Penny wondered if she had stumbled into some strange superhero…well, super-heroine comic book where lines like that actually meant something.

"I hope so." Anne's smile faded as quickly as it appeared. As she fled down the dim hallway, she yelled out, "Sorry about your door!"

* * *

They didn't become best friends. Actually, the fact was that Penny never did see her again.

And she never even got to thank the strange blonde girl with the sad eyes for saving her life.

* * *

Two years later, Penny found herself stumbling home from the bar, tipsy and not quite drunk after her latest fight with Kurt. Already, she was regretting not hailing for a taxi just because she was trying to save a few dollars. She tried to focus, tried to remember the way home from the unfamiliar neighbourhood, only to find herself stumbling into a district filled with warehouses and dark corners. The pavement narrowed itself into an alleyway, but she could see that she was close to a main street just on the other end. Looking back, someone shifted in the shadows, and began to trace her steps.

Instinctively, she began to fumble in her purse for that object she always carried with her now, since the night with that thing that called itself Sam.

"I love LA," a voice jeered behind her. "You can get a bite at any time of the day, just outside your door,"

Penny forced herself not to shake, not to show fear as her fingers closed around the rough stake she had fashioned with an old hunting knife ("Happy Birthday Slugger! Love, Dad") and a discarded chair leg. Rather than turn around however, she continued to walk forwards purposefully. The alcohol in her blood stream was translating into adrenaline, or at least, that's what she kept telling herself with every step.

"Hey, I'm talking to you." the voice sounded a lot closer now.

"Fuck off," Penny said, and immediately wished she didn't. City Living 101 – you never responded to shit like that.

"You little cunt," the voice was right behind her. Spinning around on her flat running shoes, Penny lifted the stake in her right hand, only to come face to face with the ugliest motherfucker she ever had the misfortune of laying her eyes on. The ridges on his face were far more pronounced than Sam's had been; the fangs protruding from his mouth were a rancid yellow, his breath fetid and stale.

Reacting rather than thinking, she stabbed forwards and hit home, her stake plunging deep into his chest. Before he had a chance to even realize he was doomed, he burst into a massive cloud of dust. More footsteps encircled her even as she lowered her arm.

"Small and blonde…do we have the slayer boys? Whaddya think?" another vampire asked, stepping from the shadows. Gasping, Penny allowed herself at last to show her terror – she was completely surrounded.

"Nah, the Slayer's about to become worm food on the Hellmouth," an answer that was met by vicious cheers. No one seemed to care that she had just reduced their friend into a cloud of drifting particles.

"Hear that boys?" one of them stepped closer. Penny lifted her staking arm, forcing herself to focus. Barking a laugh, the vampire knocked the weapon right out of her hand, causing her to cry out in pain and horror. He had dislocated her arm in one simple gesture.

"I'm thinking now's a good time to celebrate. And I know just the gal to liven things up around here…" cold fingers gripped her jaw like a vise, forcing her to look up into yet another pair of bestial yellow eyes.

There was a sound of screeching tires, and bright lights glared, causing her captor to release his hold and stumble backwards. Penny turned towards the newcomers, cradling her useless arm in the other, and found herself looking at an old pick-up armed to the teeth with giant wooden stakes. The vehicle was filled with young men and women, vengeance lighting their eyes like holy fire.

"You boys having a party and we weren't invited?" a young black man asked, jumping down from the back of the truck. In his hands, he held what looked unbelievably like crossbow. Penny found that she was having trouble trusting what she saw, even when she was surrounded by creatures of the night that were only supposed to exist in badly written novels.

"They're vampires," she offered inanely, although she supposed they already knew, what with the giant stakes and the crosses some of her rescuers were brandishing.

"Thanks Barbie." the man said, not taking his eyes or his aim off the vamps who were growling furiously, apparently attempting to form some kind of attack formation. He called over his shoulder, "Rondell, can't you see the lady's hurt? Get her outta here."

"We'll find her after we're done with you," one of the vampires called out. "And we're gonna make her scream. If we do it right, she'll be screamin' for days."

"But Gunn c'mon, if I go, you'll be one man short," the one called Rondell said approaching slowly, not even looking at Penny.

"We can take care of a few punk-ass demons." Gunn said. "This ain't my first rodeo. Now get the fuck out of here!"

"Thank you." Penny said, even as she could feel a warm hand dragging her away, towards sanity and towards life.

As the whole group of humans launched themselves into battle, she could only pray that he heard her sincere offering of gratitude, for what little they were worth. By the time Rondell deposited her on the corner of a busy intersection, her entire body was wracked with pain.

"Thank you." She gritted out nonetheless. "Are they going to be ok?"

"We'll be fine. Next time, take a fucking cab you understand? Fucking A, I hate stupid people." the man sounded angry. Without waiting for an answer, or to see if she was fine, he took off, back in the direction he came.

* * *

By the time she got home, it was in the afternoon, and her arm was in a sling, Kurt was already in bed, drool soaking the pillow under him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Land of Ice and Snow**

Disclaimer: All characters are the property of CBS, UPN, Fox, Dark Horse Comics and IDW Comics. No profit is being made from this work of fanfiction.

**Somewhere in Downtown LA**

Rain pounded down on asphalt that was melting from underneath, as if the earth itself was boiling.

Angel looked at his soldiers, his earlier determination faltering a little as he saw their ravaged faces. Gunn was barely standing, held up both by a combination of a sheer force of will, and Spike. Illyria's expression was a mask of rage and grief, beautiful and terrible to behold all at once.

The absence of Wesley hurt like a raw wound.

"I wish to do more violence," Illyria stated, her voice filled with human inflections of pain, sounding everything and nothing like Fred.

"Well wishes just happen to be horses today..." Spike quipped, gesturing towards the approaching horde.

"Among other things," Angel muttered as he looked at their countless foes, momentarily deaf to all else as he considered the destruction he hadn't truly meant to bring down on his city. He wondered if Connor made it home safely and wondered if he would ever see his son again. Should have figured that it would take an apocalypse to buy Connor's forgiveness…

"…of a plan?" he heard Spike ask.

"We fight." He stated.

"Bit more specific."

Angel gripped his axe. It was too late to turn back now. Grimly, he pronounced, "Well, personally, I kind of want to slay the dragon." He sucked in an unneeded breath. "Let's go to work."

His blade slashed downwards…

**

* * *

10 Miles Away**

Penny was getting herself a cup of warm milk on Wednesday night when Hell peeled back the sky of Southern California. As in, Hell, the one Sheldon's mother had apparently warned him about. She watched in abject horror, fingers still clutching at her mug's curved handle, as the moon became blood red and the sky went from being the darkest indigo, to a terrible scarlet.

Downstairs, she could hear people in the street screaming. It was a chorus that only grew as the minutes ticked by. Strange creatures seemed to fall out of the sky, some taking flight on massive scaled wings, some falling to the ground and spreading more death and terror with every step they took. Things she had only ever imagined could exist in the darkest recesses of humanity's nightmares emerged from the alleyways close by, pouncing on the panicked crowd.

Someone was at her door.

"Penny,"

_Knock, knock, knock._

"Penny,"

_Knock, knock, knock._

"Penny,"

_Knock, knock, knock._

The mug slipped from her fingers at last, crashing to the ground in a million pieces, hot white liquid splashing everywhere. But she was beyond caring. Instead, she was opening the door and yanking Sheldon inside.

"I was doing a raid with my guild when my server shut down and I got disconnected from the internet." He started frantically. "That's when I heard the screams. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Are _you_ ok? Where's Leonard?" Penny asked, bolting down the entrance to her home.

"Leonard's working overnight again at Caltech," Sheldon responded. She turned to look at him, finally noticing the sawn off shot-gun he was holding in his hands. And the samurai sword strapped to his back, together with his 'Bug-Out' backpack.

"Sheldon, where did you get the gun?" she asked.

"My Meemaw sent it to me last Christmas." Sheldon said. "It's the classic Texan holiday gift."

"And the sword?" she asked, and was suddenly conscious of the fact that she was only wearing a tank top and her underwear. She brushed past him, heading into the bedroom; thankfully, he didn't follow. Instead, he crept towards the window, looking outside at the tableau of horror.

"I ordered that online last month. It seemed like a logical purchase." He replied, and even then, even in the midst of all the chaos and fear that was present in every breath she took, she managed to smile. Pulling on a pair of jeans, she considered her underwear drawer for a second, before digging into it and pulling out a weapon she had whittled a long time ago, but never had to use since.

"Penny, it could be the panic in me speaking, but are you holding a wooden stake?" Sheldon asked.

Turning, she studied his confused expression.

"What do you know about vampires?" she asked at last, finding her voice.

"They're a fictional trope that appeared in many folk tales the world over, before being translated into a fixture in popular culture as we know it." He responded, looking at her as if she was the one who had lost her mind. It was new, the concept of Sheldon thinking she was the crazy one for a change.

"_Vampires exist and the things that go bump in the night are trying to kill you._" Penny quoted from memory.

"Penny…"

"Look out the window again Sheldon. If you don't believe me, you can at least believe the…what would you call it, Empirical Evidence?" Penny gripped her stake just a little tighter.

Her neighbor didn't know if he ought to be shocked at the fact that she knew what "Empirical Evidence" meant, or if he ought to believe what she was telling him. Taking pity, she reached a hand out to touch him, noting that her hands were shaking uncontrollably. She opened her mouth to say something, but realized at the last second that she didn't have anything more to add. Not really.

"We should go. Get away from here." he said.

She approached her living room window and looked out again. Demonic creatures stalked the streets outside, among limp human bodies that lay mangled and drained on the ground. Giant scaled tentacles seemed to be emerging from cracks that had appeared in the ground, waving languidly in the air, wrapping themselves around destroyed cars and ruined debris…_the arms of Hell_, Penny thought, _reaching out to hold us closer_. The air smelled like an abattoir, all bloody flesh and iron, tinged with a burning quality that stung her eyes and her throat.

"Sulfur," Sheldon said, coming up behind her. She looked up, into his glassy eyes as he seemed to come to terms with the only possible explanation about what just happened to their world. He added pointlessly, "That's what you're smelling - sulfur."

"Sheldon…where would we even go?" she asked. "How would we get there?"

For once, the genius had no answer for her. Instead, he reached for her curtain cord with trembling fingers, and pulled, obscuring them from the world outside.

* * *

The two of them stayed silent, listening to the muffled cries for help emanating from their neighbours as they attempted to escape the building. Sheldon pointed his gun diligently at the front door, waiting for the first invaders to come through.

Penny wanted to know why they seemed to be avoiding attack, but she didn't dare speak.

"If they were supernatural creatures, as you so firmly believe, they should have sniffed us out by now," Sheldon murmured once. She wanted to hit him for his hardheadedness, his inability to admit that his neat little universe just had its foundations pulled out from under it.

"Unless the smell that clogs our nostrils affects their senses as well." He added, and she couldn't miss the bitter note in his voice. She could understand that, at least.

"Help will come." She kept repeating under her breath, trying to sound like she believed it.

She was surprised when his warm, dry hand eventually found hers, albeit awkward and tentatively, though his eyes remained fixed on the door. Huddled beside each other, they remained in that position until one whole day after all the noises had finally died down, and they remembered at last that they were hungry and thirsty.

* * *

In his hand, Penny's palm was unpleasantly clammy, so tense that he was starting to become worried she might pull a nerve. He would have smiled at her, trying to re-assure her, if he didn't think that it would simply have been an empty gesture. There was nothing he could offer in terms of comfort. At least, not without a measure of dishonesty.

They needed to get out of the building. They needed to get out of the city, the state, the country, maybe even off the planet. He had been expecting something like this for as long as anyone knew, with his emergency bags (items colour coded than categorically organized) and the weaponry he collected. Hell, even as a child, he'd put together a small backpack of comic books, juice packs, canned tuna and band-aids, just in case something horrible broke through the flimsy fence surrounding the trailer park attempting to devour all in its jaws of doom. Now that the ground had cracked apart and the things that had hidden underneath for eons were crawling out of their pits, it occurred to him that he still wasn't _ready_, despite all his prep work.

Penny wasn't going to be persuaded to leave – not soon. The mantra she kept repeating told him everything he needed to know – she was still living under the assumption that the world continued to operate under a system of order. Penny wasn't stupid. She was simply human, clinging to the familiar.

Sheldon might be opposed to making changes in his life, abiding by a code of order and patterns that defined every single action in his existence. Nonetheless, his emergency duffel bags were testament to the fact that he was ready to shed everything, every last ingrained habit, if it meant he'd survive.

Well. Almost everything.

Experimentally, Sheldon squeezed Penny's hand – according to several relevant works of fiction he'd read, gestures like that were suppose to help.

* * *

The last thing Penny would have expected to be grateful for, was the fact that Sheldon and Leonard had been giant gamers. The kind that sat at their computers for forty-eight hours, repeating raid after raid, waiting for that one epic drop that would complete their armour set for their Level 80 Rogues, or their Warriors. This meant that they were also the kind of geeks who stocked their kitchen with Meal Replacement packs and canned food. And because Sheldon refused to drink tap water, something that wasn't even an option anymore now that the faucets only ran blood, they had a case of bottled water to work with.

The skin-crawling and overwhelming horror remained. Every alien noise not made by either of them sent them ducking for cover under his computer table or the kitchen counter (they snuck over to _his_ apartment the moment they thought they could get away with it – as if she didn't see _that_ coming).

"Let's say I believe that Hell has indeed been inflicted on this plane of existence." Sheldon started quietly out of the blue, his eyes fixed on his whiteboard filled with scribbles. "Let's say that everything we knew about science, about the physics in our universe wasn't complete."

She waited for him to continue.

"As you know, I've long posited the idea that there are alternate dimensions parallel to ours. Is it not possible that what we consider to be 'Hell' is simply another dimension colliding with ours somehow, in the space-time continuum?" his hands began gesturing wildly. For a second, Penny wondered if he was finally going mad, then reminded herself that even when the world wasn't so fucked over, he tended to behave like that.

"Umm…"

"If a gap had been allowed to open, to allow this infringement between realities to occur, it would be reasonable to assume that there must have been an event to trigger this otherwise unprecedented situation. It would not be unreasonable to assume that there was a set structure of actions that took place to cause this event, which point to the possibility that there should therefore, by all logic, be a set of actions that can reverse this unfortunate collision of parallel universes."

"You're looking for logic?" Penny questioned.

"Yes." He looked down.

"I don't know that you'll find it."

"It's the only thing I know how to do – to find a reasonable, logical, scientific explanation." He responded, voice even quieter than before.

She paused.

"That's not true."

He looked at her questioningly.

"You still know how to confuse the bajeezus outta me." She informed him, forcing herself to smile. He must have appreciated the gesture, because he allowed her to rest her head against his shoulder. Awkwardly, he patted her hand.

"There there." He murmured. After a while, he added, "I've shot monsters on my screen. Decimated entire cells of demons on the console…never imagined for one second that I might hafta do it for real."

"Sheldon?" she whispered.

"Hmm?"

"Do you think the boys are safe?" she asked, trying to fight the tears in her voice. "They're smart. They must have survived right?"

"They did." He responded, sounding determined. "They must have."

"Howard's probably trying to hit on some poor terrified girl," she joked weakly.

"Koothrappali is probably grateful he finally has a valid excuse not to call his parents." He said.

"Leonard's probably tried to make his own Star Wars action figures by now." She added.

"What do you think happened to our families?" he asked. "Do you think this is a planet-wide thing? Or is it just us?"

They fell silent, all cheer seeping out their bodies as quickly as it came.

* * *

"We'll have to raid a store." Sheldon said on the seventh day, staring at their last two bottles of water.

"The closest store is the gas station. And that's assuming it hasn't been cleaned out." Penny replied, idly studying the minor scruff that was developing on his chin. There was a moment of hesitation, and she could tell that what he said was going to be distasteful.

If she could bring herself to laugh, she would have. This was a world in which Sheldon held himself back from speaking the truth, because it offended someone.

"We haven't heard anything at all in our building over the last few days. Do you think, in the other apartments…"

At best, they'd find water, and even other survivors. At worst…at worst they'd be gutted by demons, or shot by over-cautious residents.

"Let me go get dressed." She said.

* * *

It took them five minutes to make it back to Apartment 4B, what with the checking and re-checking, the anxiety and fear crippling their every move.

Penny put on her thickest pair of socks, and rummaged around her closet for the combat boots she had purchased months ago on a whim. Lacing them up over her jeans, she shoved the wooden stake into the side of her boots.

She reached deep into her closet and pulled out the gift she had given herself a few years ago - a wooden crossbow. The weapon was polished and well maintained, light enough for her to balance, but obviously capable of considerable damage if used right. Sheldon seemed to resist an urge to twitch, as she located her quiver of wooden bolts.

"I never knew you were a collector of medieval weaponry," Sheldon said from her doorway. "I own one myself, but figured realistically, shotguns did more damage per second."

"Aside from a stake, there probably ain't nothing better when dealin' with vampires." She whispered back, letting a bit of Omaha-Penny slip out as she strapped her ammunition to her back, dumping the crossbow on the bed momentarily. Quickly, she pulled her hair into a tight ponytail, forcing her breathing to stay even.

"I'm ready." She said, turning at last to Sheldon who still stared at her with new eyes, as if he didn't recognize her. They didn't budge to leave.

Penny sat down on the bed, sliding the crossbow onto her lap. She patted the spot next to her, and waited until he sat down.

"Sheldon, I ever tell you about my first few years in California?"

* * *

"You researched the supernatural underbelly of our society after your first encounters with them?" Sheldon whispered furiously as they began to sneak out their door.

"Yes."

"You _researched_? You opened a book, and conducted searches on electronic databases?" he asked, sounding completely incredulous.

"Yes ok? There's a whole website about Demons. Called Demons, Demons Demons actually. That's where I found out about the whole invitation thing."

"How can you be sure it isn't all hokum?"

They were standing between apartments 4A and 4B now, and Penny felt incredibly exposed.

"Because they seem to know what they're talking about. There are even support groups for victims of vampire attacks. I went to one."

"I still don't see how that makes them trustworthy."

She deserved an award for not smacking him. Apparently, Sheldon found time to be a bitch even when the world was ending. They both kept their eyes studiously ahead, in an effort to avoid the marks on the floor where some battered body had been dragged across. Dull red splatters decorated the walls of the stairway as they ventured upwards. The every present odour of rotting meat seemed to get stronger with every step, and it took every ounce of strength not to gag.  
On the bright side, nothing else seemed to stir within the building aside from the both of them.

"You sure you know how to use that thing?" Penny asked, looking over at Sheldon's shotgun. He cast her a withering look.

"You sure you know how to use a crossbow?" he retorted.

"Honestly? No. I never did have a chance to practice."

"Oh." He looked alarmed. "Well, that's…swell."

Penny reconsidered. Sheldon deserved an award for being able to make her smile while the world was ending.

* * *

Apartment 7B was carpeted in a thick layer of body parts and decimated lumps that might once have been human organs. The former resident stared at them out of rotting eye sockets from the corner of the living room, emptied of their burden. The only things alive within the apartment were the maggots feasting on what remained.

Penny fell to her knees, retching acid from her gut.

Without a word about limited supplies, Sheldon uncapped one of the bottles of water they had successfully located, and passed it to her. If he felt the same urge to vomit up the contents of his gut, he was certainly controlling it well.

"I think we have enough to keep us going for now." He said, hoisting her to her feet after a few minutes. Shuddering in his arms, it was apparent that she had temporarily lost the ability to walk. With uncharacteristic gentleness, he swept her legs up from under her, and carefully brought her back down to their home.

Even as he approached his own door, he was already considering the best possible way to get them out of the building, knowing that their days of hiding from the reality of the outside world were numbered.

* * *

Her face was buried in his neck, and even under the layers of grime and sweat that had accumulated, she could smell that scent that was distinctively _Sheldon_

.

Something that he would never know, and will never know, if she had it her way: during the summer he spent in the Arctic, when she was alone and missing the sounds of Halo and Rock Band drifting over from next door, she would let herself into 4A.

At first, she'd tell herself that she really just wanted to make sure their plants were still alive (he had left specific instructions after all). She would dust here and there, telling herself it was her good deed for the year, and God knows, she wouldn't hear the end of his snark if she didn't even try keeping his place clean.

Until she found herself sitting on his bed, surrounded by his things, by the sheets that hadn't yet lost that _Sheldon_ smell…

It took every last ounce of willpower to remind herself that Leonard was the one she ought to be missing. The one who looked at her as if she were some kind of fairy tale princess come to life.

Funny. The only thing that came true from those stupid tales were the monsters, she thought, as he set her down gently on his leather sofa.

* * *

"You're going to have to develop some form of coping mechanism. We can't have you falling apart every time we deal with a situation like that – something I suspect, we're going to have to face on a regular basis from now on." He said commandingly.

"Fuck you Sheldon." She replied, annoyed at his tone.

"That's mature."

"What if I don't want to get used to it? Why should I get used to this fucking nightmare we're living in?" she demanded, her voice beginning to rise a little.

"Because we have to. Because in case you haven't noticed, no one's coming to help us. If we're going to survive, we're going to need to get better at this." He snapped angrily. "_You're_ going to need to get better at this."

"Why is it that always somehow my fault?" she asked heatedly. "You won't even believe me when I say that we've been invaded by a demonic force. It's because you think I'm an idiot!"

"Penny…"

"No don't fucking 'Penny' me," she was losing the thread of her thoughts, leaving only a frustrated mess. "It's got to be hard, being stuck with someone as intellectually inferior as me. Just for once Cooper, can't you acknowledge that I'm not the most fucking useless person in the room? If it weren't for me, you'd have run out into the open by now, getting yourself killed…"

She would have continued, if Sheldon hadn't chosen that moment to end her tirade with a kiss. His arms wrapped around her in a crushing embrace, utterly different from the tentative and awkward hugs of before. His mouth vied for supremacy and won as he deepened the kiss, eliciting a strangled moan from deep in her throat. When at last he pulled away, he said,

"If I started telling you all the things I admired about you, I would never have been able to stop."

"And now?" she asked breathlessly.

"And now…and now I have nothing to lose." He smiled a smile tinged with regret. "Now I look at you and think of all the times I had you close, but never touched you. Never told you how frakking amazing you are. It helps that you're the first person to ever beat me at Halo."

"All this time. I didn't even think you realized I was a woman." She felt foolish. It was the end of all things, and all she wanted was to keep making out with him.

"Would it have helped if I had made you aware of how I felt?" there was a note of earnestness in his voice. "Would you have forsaken others for me? Would you have left Leonard?"

If she could turn back time, if there was only a way, she would have told him the day she met him all the things she could only admit to herself now, instead of wasting three years of their lives so close but too far apart. As it was, she gaze at him in bittersweet longing as she listened to him speak in a way that was so completely different from the Sheldon she was used to, and yet honest in a manner that only he could be.

"Penny, I have nothing to lose except you. Do you understand?" he asked. "I need you to stay strong. I need you to stay alive."

"Make me feel alive," she whispered, and kissed him again.

"We have to think about leaving here…" he said, trying to stay focused.

"Just give us an hour ok?" she begged. "Give _me_ an hour, before we have to think about what happens to us now…"

His hand swept against the smooth expanse of her back, under her thin shirt.

"Ok…" he murmured against her lips. "Ok."

* * *

"So. You're definitely not asexual."

"Who told you I was?"

"No one."

"I suppose I might have accidentally given off that impression over the years. I never saw the point in wasting time on just anyone who came along. If I were going to invest myself, it was going to have to have long term payoffs, I suppose."

"I wasn't worth a Doctor Cooper investment?"

"I didn't think you wanted me."

"Whack-a-Doodle."

"That appears to be your theory."

"Sheldon?"

"Yes Penny?"

"Kiss me again."

"Ok. But what if I can't stop?"

"Don't."

* * *

"Anyone alive in there?" a voice called out. Penny sat up, holding the comforter against her naked chest. Beside her, Sheldon stirred, but didn't wake. Apparently, he was far more exhausted than she had guessed.

Dressing as quickly as possible, Penny ran out to the living room, ensuring that her stake was handy in her back pocket. Reaching the door, she slowed down.

"Penny? Sheldon?"

She couldn't believe her ears.

"Leonard?"

"Penny?" he answered, sounding relieved. "Oh my God, I can't believe you're alive. Open up, let me in."

"What happened to your key?" she asked, unbolting the door and letting it swing open. True enough, her ex-boyfriend was standing on the other side, a look of unmitigated joy on his dirt streaked face. His clothes were covered in soot and specks of blood, but otherwise, he seemed whole.

"Are you kidding? I lost my entire man purse," he said.

She waited for him to step in.

"So Sheldon in there?" he asked.

She didn't answer. Instead, her gaze dropped to his feet, the way they stood on the edge of the threshold, as if he were unable to cross that line.

"Oh for fuck's sake."

Leonard's face transformed, his fangs stretching into a mockery of his sweet smile. "Honey, I'm home."

There wasn't time to scream. Instead, he reached in and snatched at her throat, dragging her out of the protective shield of Sheldon's home.

"Miss me?" the vampire asked, hissing in glee as she tried to find her footing while she started to choke. He sniffed deeply. "Didn't think you would. I can smell _Shelly_ all over you, you fucking whore."

"Leonard, if you're in there somewhere please…" she started, struggling uselessly in his grasp.

"I can't believe you slept with him." He snarled, throwing her to the ground. She thought of the stake in her back pocket, now as good as useless. "Working your way through the group are you? Don't worry that pretty blonde head of yours. Howard and Raj will be along soon and then we can say we've all had a turn. You'd like that wouldn't you? Leslie sure did."

"What did you do to her?" she asked, then shrieked as he pounced, fangs breaking through skin.

"Nothing she didn't always want." He promised with malicious glee, rearing up, his lips covered in her blood. "Bitch always thought she was better than me. Now she's nothing and less than nothing. You should've seen her face by the time we were finished with her…"

Penny jerked her knee up, hoping to catch him between his legs. It would have worked if he didn't anticipate it happening.

"You little bi…" he never got to finish. He looked down at his chest, and Penny followed his gaze to see a sharp wooden point sticking out his chest. "What the frak?"

As he dissolved into dust, Sheldon pulled her up.

"You dropped your stake." He said grimly.

"You killed Leonard." She replied, determined not to cry.

"Roommate contract. He didn't get to shoot me if I became an undead creature, but I never promised the same in return." He turned away quickly.

"He said Howard and Raj were…there are more coming." She rubbed her sore throat, following him in and shutting the door. Sheldon waited for her to move out of the way, before shoving a bookcase in front of it.

"Window. Go." He ordered, and picked up a black duffel bag.

Putting on her boots again at record speed, she slung her crossbow and quiver across her back, while he grabbed his shotgun and sword.

"Sheldon, for what it's worth…" Penny said, reaching out to touch him. He flinched slightly. "I'm sorry."

"There's no need." He replied, smiling that same regretful smile again. "It wasn't Leonard any more. Leonard loved you. He would never have…"

He trailed off, leaving the rest to silence.

* * *

"Three dogs. Or at least I think they're dogs…" Penny said hesitantly, peering over the window ledge at the trio of canine-looking beasts, feasting on something directly below.

"I could take them out with my gun, but the noise might attract unwanted attention."

They ignored the tentacles clinging to the rails of the fire-escape, waving at them in some form of hungry greeting. Instead, they had tied together every sheet in the apartment, hoping that it would take their weight as they exited out of Sheldon's bedroom window. Sure, it was a childish idea, but it was their last one.

"Use your crossbow." Sheldon ordered.

They could hear Raj's and Howard's voices by the front door. Even knowing that they needed an invitation to get in didn't make them feel better. Deciding not to argue, Penny took aim and fired three successive shots. She missed the last creature, and watched it scamper away with a whine.

"It'll be back. We have to go." Sheldon took a deep breath and swung his leg over the edge. "I'm the master of my bladder."

"Sheldon! Focus!"

"Fine."

He gripped the sheet tightly, and started climbing down carefully. Slightly above him, Penny followed suit.

"Don't look down." She instructed.

"Why'd you have to go and say that for?" he asked plaintively.

As they approached the second level, an unnatural breeze drifted from above, accompanied by the sound of loud flapping. Sure enough, there was a massive dragon making a fast descent, Penny discovered as she peered upwards.

"Sheldooon!" she squeaked. "Move your ass."

"Slight problem." He called up. She looked downwards, to find that he had been right, and indeed, the 'dog' had returned, only it had brought company.

Turns out, it was the runt of the litter she had missed.

"Sweetie, I want you to know that I lo…"

"Penny, duck!" Sheldon yelled, unsheathing his sword with one hand, no mean feat for a man who feared heights as much as he did.

The dragon swept right beside her face, but didn't touch her. Instead, a dark shape seemed to fall off its back, landing on the pavement below. This was followed by a loud crash. It appeared that the dragon had deposited a green car on the road, dropping the vehicle from its immense claws.

"What's happening?" Penny shrieked.

"I think I just found a real life superhero." Sheldon said, sounding awe-struck.

Below, they could hear the sounds of a skirmish taking place. Several dog-like creatures whined and growled as they fell to the sound of a blade taking each of them out. Finally, there was nothing but silence.

"You folks can come down now…unless you want to hang out there a while more…" an unfamiliar voice called.

"How do we know you won't eat us?" Penny called.

"You don't. You just have to trust me."

She was saved from answering when the sheets they held on to decided to untie themselves. With a shock, Penny realized they were crashing towards the ground. How ironic, to escape the clutches of bloodthirsty demons, only to die by falling two stories.

Except she wasn't dead. Rather, Sheldon and her seemed to be lying on something soft, albeit leathery.

"I think we landed on the dragon's wing…" Sheldon pronounced. His sword was still drawn.

"Watch where you point that thing. Cordelia's not fond of sharp things stabbing at her." It was their rescuer, clambering atop the dragon to survey his finds. In his hands, he held a big war axe which dripped with blood that looked almost black under the eternal twilight sky.

"Cordelia?" Sheldon questioned.

"The dragon. Her name's Cordelia."

"You can't name a dragon Cordelia." Sheldon started protesting. "It should be Smaug, or Smrgol…I will even accept Norbert. Have you no concept of proper dragon names?"

"Is…is he for real?" the man asked, staring at Sheldon with a perturbed expression.

"Yeah he's…special." Penny said, reaching out to grab Sheldon's hand. He was probably still in shock – it had been a rough hour.

The dragon seemed to shrug, and the couple slid off its wing to land unharmed on the ground.

"Who are you?" Penny asked, taking in dark hair and black clothes.

"My name's Angel. Can either of you drive?" the stranger asked, sounding impatient.

"She can."

"I can." The two of them said at once.

"Good. Take that green car there. The keys are in it. You want to find someone named Connor. He's at…"

* * *

As the rounded the corner, they spotted Raj and Howard emerging from their apartment building. Without asking, Sheldon snatched the crossbow from the backseat and forced Penny to stop briefly. Arming it as quickly as he could, Sheldon took careful aim and fired twice.

The two vampires didn't even see what hit them.

By the time she turned the next corner, there was nothing but thin wooden bolts clattering to the floor of the pavement.

"For Howard and Raj." Sheldon said, his voice oddly choked. "They deserved better."

"For Leslie too," Penny added, not bothering to wipe the tears streaming down her cheeks. She may never have liked the other woman, but none of that made a difference. Not anymore.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: My Only Friend

* * *

"Pet, you might want to tell your geeky little boyfriend to stop irritating everyone with his OCD issues. I've heard talk about leaving him outside the camp overnight. It won't be a pretty sight." Spike warned, blowing cigarette smoke in the other direction. Penny scowled irritably. The peroxide blonde grinned at her expression. "You're cute when you're pissed off."

"Geez Spike. For a hundred and something vampire, you haven't figured out how to lay off the cheese when talking to girls have ya?" Penny asked sweetly.

They were part of a small group, hunting for food and medical supplies in a mall just outside the city limits. The two of them stood guard at the entrance of a pharmacy as another two searched for useful stuff within.

It hadn't taken long for the group of survivors to realize that the Nebraskan girl was the one of the best shots they had. Which wasn't saying much, but considering the limited skills of the group at large, whatever little she brought to the table was valued. Unfortunately for fortunately, depending on how one looked at it, this resulted in her being posted to guard duty often, when she wasn't on re-con missions. Even if part of her was selfishly terrified that she might not survive each assignment, she went along with it. Anything was better than sitting around feeling useless.

"You remind me so much of her…" Spike started wistfully.

"I probably shouldn't ask but…who?"

"Another girl I knew once. Small, blonde, kicked a lot of vampire ass…"

"How'd she end up with you?" Penny asked suspiciously, remembering something from her own life. "Lost a bet?"

"I could say the same about you and Wonder Geek." Spike retaliated.

"Was her name Anne?" She refused to meet his eyes.

Spike shot her a sideways glace, seemingly startled.

"Buffy. Buffy Anne Summers." He confirmed after a moment. "The Slayer. One girl, before there was an entire herd."

"So…she's alive." Penny said softly, more to herself than at Spike, whom she still didn't like. Didn't matter if they told her he had a soul. He was still a vampire.

"I hope so." He murmured, dropping his cigarette. As he put it out under his heel, his expression turned utterly grave, "Listen Pet. Don't let Wonder Geek get too close to Illyria. Promise me."

"Is she Fred or is she Illyria?" Penny wondered. "Can't keep names straight around here."

"Wish I could tell you luv. But it doesn't make a difference. It will only lead to much badness, as Buffy would say."

"Are the two of you a thing?"

"Me and Big Blue? No." he drew his leather duster closer around his wiry frame, even though it was as warm as Hell could be. "No."

Penny nodded. She didn't like Spike – didn't mean that she didn't trust him.

* * *

The weeks had turned into months, since they first joined the safehouse. The one run by a werewolf chick, an honest-to-god Mutant ("The X-Men do exist!" Sheldon had exclaimed immediately, to Penny's chagrin) who shot electricity from her fingertips, and the teenaged boy named Connor, whom Angel had sent them to in the first place.

True, the leaders didn't exactly inspire immediate confidence in her, but it was better than being on their own. Nina, Gwen and Connor had managed to keep the few survivors under their wing alive, and that was something in the desolate warzone once known as downtown L.A.

Besides, once she had seen them in battle, it became clear why they were in charge.

As they drove into the compound, Spike avoided all the booby traps that came from the brain of Sheldon Cooper. Vicious traps such as killer robots made of scrap metal and blades that shout out of spring loaded rusty pipes, were among some of the lovely surprises that led to the entrance of the ratty warehouse they were holed up in.

Strange as it was, she found herself extremely proud of her boyfriend's killer instincts. As she stepped onto the concrete, she brushed past everyone, following the sound of Sheldon's distinctive voice.

They were in a corner, discussing excitedly the mechanics of some new toy he was trying to invent. Not toy, she corrected herself. Security system that would probably be able to decapitate at least a dozen heads under a minute. The mousy girl she knew as Fred, or Illyria as Spike referred to her as, was gesticulating wildly, scribbling out equations excitedly onto scrap paper.

There was a time when she might have been jealous at the sight of a lover sitting so close to another woman. Now, all she felt was tendrils of fear creeping into her heart as she recalled Spike's warning.

"Hey." She called out.

The Sheldon she had known in what felt like another lifetime would have ignored her greeting, preferring to continue with his work. In this one, he excused himself abruptly from his discussion with Fred, making his way to her side under a split second. Fred seemed oddly curious as she stared at them.

"I don't want to interrupt but…" Penny started, feeling the weight of the other woman's strange scrutiny.

"And yet you have." Fred's voice deepened the way it did on severable memorable occasions, right before she took out some new Demon Lord that decided to test his will against hers. Sheldon might have been capable of ignoring such a tiny detail that the harmless looking girl could become a killing machine in a heartbeat, but she wasn't. The blonde girl weathered the intense gaze, until a bright smile appeared on Fred's face. "Go on you two."

"I'll be back." Sheldon promised, leading Penny back to the tiny quarters they shared.

* * *

The moment they were alone, Penny found her hips pressed against the corrugated iron walls of their room, pinned in place under the weight of his lanky body.

A slum. She lived in a fucking slum, she thought for the thousandth time as she felt sharp slats digging into her back.

"You were gone for hours." He almost snarled against her mouth. His body was strip of muscle now, not a spare pound of flesh to spare. "Do you know what I was thinking?"

"Let's be honest." She said in between her laboured breathes as she ripped at the fly of his pants. "I never do."

"Fucking hell Penny," he had stopped saying 'Frak' some time ago. For some reason, the way he said 'Fuck' sent a jolt of excitement straight to her clit. At the same time, it made her want to cry for the part of Sheldon Lee Cooper that was lost forever.

Ignoring the latter emotion, she yanked his cock out, as he returned the favour and pulled off her pants. Slipping his hand under her ass, he lifted her body and tilted his hips.

"Every fucking time you leave," he gasped as he slid inside her. "Every fucking time, I go a little crazier."

"Sheldon," she whispered, held upright only because she was trapped between his body and the wall.

His lips latched onto her neck, onto the faint wounds a vampire named Sam had left on there once, which Leonard had only deepened. As his tongue moved against her skin, as he thrust again and again into her welcoming body, her nails dug hard into his back, practically ripping into the fabric of his shirt.

She could feel the muscles moving under his skin, feel the heat coming off him in waves as he clung desperately to her, like she was the only thing anchoring him to the earth.

"Penny," he murmured into her skin, as her fingers tangled in his lengthening hair.

"Fuck yeah," she whispered, feeling her own body coil like a tightly wound spring.

His teeth scraped against her lower lip, and with a cry, she came. Slowing his movements, he waited for her to come back down to earth, before he pushed hard against her a few more times. As he came, her name lingered on his lips.

Together, they slid to the dirty ground, legs and arms entangled.

"I missed you." He said.

"I can tell,"

All their friends were dead because they had to kill them. They hadn't had a proper shower in weeks, and they lived in a germ infested Hell-hole – and that term wasn't even an exaggeration.

Some days, Penny thought about leaving the compound alone and weaponless, under the blood moon and grayed-out sun.

The honest truth was, she doubted even Sheldon would blame her the day she finally did it.

* * *

She wasn't comfortable with him coming along on a re-con mission. He wouldn't stop talking, wouldn't stop wanting to touch, wanting to explore the abandoned Wal-Mart in yet another abandoned mega-mall, and it frightened her.

"Relax." Spike said, striding along beside Penny as she kept her eyes on him.

"Why was he allowed to come anyway?" she demanded, her hands clenching on her crossbow so tightly, her knuckles were white.

"Allowed? He forced Nina to let him get in the truck." Spike chortled. "He threatened to explain particle physics at length until she let him come with us."

"Fuck." She cursed quietly.

"I can hear you from here you know." Sheldon called over his shoulder. He brandished his drawn Katana. "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

_Damn his Vulcan hearing, _she heard a voice in her head say.

"I have to admit, that's a decent sword." Spike said, bending to light his cigarette. It did not miss Penny's attention when he suddenly froze, cocking his head to the side.

"Bugger." He said with feeling, as the ambushers started creeping out of the shadows. "Gavrok Spiders."

"Spiders?" Sheldon almost squeaked, edging backwards with his sword sheathed neatly behind him, his shotgun raised expectantly.

"Nasty, flesh eating fuckers." Spike nodded. Sara and Kyle, the other two members of their team drew closer, brandishing a baseball bat and a sword respectively. Penny watched in horrified fascination as the spiders, each the size of dinner plates began scuttling closer, their legs making the most disturbing noises as they skittered across the walls and the floor.

Without warning, one of the things fell directly from the ceiling onto Sara's face.

For as long as Penny lived, she would never forget the agonized, blood curdling scream that was dragged out of the woman's chest.

"Everyone out!" Spike roared, smashing the pommel of his sword into one of the giant bugs that had taken a flying leap with him. "Penny, take these two nitwits with you! You're their best hope."

Sheldon grabbed Penny's hand and together with Kyle, they began to make a frantic break for the exit to the parking lot, only to be blocked off by yet another swarm.

"This way!" someone shouted. Without stopping to question the wisdom of their decision, their feet pounded in the direction of the person calling out to them, ducking in and out of narrow aisles containing useless junk. Someone else hollered, "Hurry up! We can't hold them off forever!"

Emerging from the soft toy department, the three of them found themselves staring at a group of men hacking furiously at the spiders with machetes. One of them looked up and grinned, his handsome face unchanged by the preceding years.

"Gunn!" Penny exclaimed.

"Do I know you?" her one-time saviour asked. "Hold that thought. Follow us."

The group took off with the three scavengers in tow, running deep into the heart of the shopping mall. Twice, Sheldon turned and fired. From the unholy and inhuman shrieks they left behind, it was clear that his bullets had found their intended marks.

"Do you know this guy?" Kyle panted, his red shirt soaked in perspiration.

"Kinda." Penny replied. "He saved me a long time ago."

"Oh. Good."

They kept running, until they found themselves at the point where all corridors converged, beside a long dormant fountain that wafted the strong, stale perfume of mildew.

"That was fun!" Gunn whooped.

"Sure." Sheldon gasped, sweat dripping down the side of his face. "Penny, I assume this man had once been one of your many paramours?"

"Nah. I simply saved Barbie here one time from vampires, am I right?" Gunn kept smiling his easy smile. Penny frowned – when was the last time she saw someone so cheerful? "What the hell were you people doing here? If my crew hadn't been on the hunt, no one would have been around to pull you outta that mess."

"We were looking for supplies…" Kyle started.

"Hunt?" Penny asked, dread settling into the pit of her stomach as she reached for the stake tucked into her jeans.

"Blondes." Gunn laughed as his eyes flashed yellow, along with the eyes of his followers. "We gotta eat too, am I right?"

Sheldon let lose a shell into a demon's chest, sending him crashing backwards. Penny stabbed her stake into one of the vampire's heart, before turning around to fire a bolt at yet another bloodsucker who caught the arrow in his hand. Her arms were pulled behind her, twisted in such a way that she was forced to drop both weapons. Sheldon, stared in horror as he himself was wrestled to the ground.

"Gunn, let them go." Spike's voice called from above. The peroxide blonde jumped from the upper level, landing square on his feet. "Or do you nuggets really think you can take me?"

Even Penny could see he was bluffing, his face more than a little cut up, his stance just that little bit weak. Close by, from the direction of Walmart, thousands of scuttling legs could be heard getting closer and closer…

"Spike, get Sheldon out of here," Penny called out, struggling against the iron grip that entrapped her.

"You're got a lot more guts than I had given you credit for Barbie…" Gunn almost sounded admiring. "That's the kinda spirit I need on my team."

As he plunged his fangs into her flesh, she felt her knees buckling under her.

"No!" Sheldon yelled. There was an audible crack as someone snapped Kyle's neck. With a battle shout, Spike leapt at the vampires beside Sheldon. Unfortunately, Penny never got to see the end of that struggle. She could feel herself being hoisted against the cold dead body of a man who had once rescued her from certain death, and whisked away into the labyrinth of the shopping arcade.

As Penny's began to die in earnest, all she could do was weep as she realized a deep truth – she wasn't ready for it to end after all.

"Relax Barbie," she could hear Gunn's voice whispering as if from far away. "You'll wake up better and stronger."

And then, she was gone.

* * *

When Sheldon awoke, he found himself staring at the dripping ceiling above the tiny cot he shared with Penny. He lay still for a second, waiting to see if she would plant a kiss of greeting on his lips.

"Stay still." Fred's voice said in the darkness.

"Where's Penny?" he asked, blinking rapidly.

"You're lucky you didn't break anything." Fred continued as if he hadn't spoken, her voice gentle and sweet.

Sheldon pushed himself up by the elbows, to see Spike and Fred looking at him in pity.

"Where's Penny?" he asked again.

"You know where she is." Spike said.

Sheldon could hear a keening sound, as if somewhere close, an animal was in pain. When he realized the sound was coming from him, he was almost surprised.

* * *

"The scientist man…his grief is strong," Illyria said later as they patrolled the grounds.

Spike ran a tired hand over his face.

"Of course his grief is bloody strong." Spike sounded exhausted. "He's just lost the love of his life. We need to keep an eye on him. He may try going after her the moment he wakes up."

"I destroyed the ones who stole Wesley's presence from me." She tilted her head to the side. "If he likes, I will do the same for him."

Keeping his voice even, Spike replied, "We have more important things to think about. For instance, if she gets turned, Penny has a working knowledge of all our defense systems,"

"You don't believe that she will retain her former affections? After all, she will retain all the memories that made her human."

Spike looked at the blue Goddess beside him, trying to understand what Illyria was asking.

"I don't know." He said. "I don't know if things were ever as simple as we pretended them to be."

* * *

He tried to remember about the way her skin felt under his hands, and wondered at himself, that he had waited so long before acting on his desire to touch her. For years, he'd tried to pretend he was better than his friends – that he was above such base urges as sex, above the need for companionship and affection. When he told people that he was an evolved specimen of humanity, he had even believed it.

The first time he had held her, that first amazing Christmas, was the first time his wall of absolute certainty had began to crumble. She had been so small in his arms, softer than anything he had ever touched.

Fred had been back earlier, only she was wearing her hair blue, in the leather catsuit that once would have set Wolowitz's head spinning. She's spoken to him in an alien voice, inquiring awkwardly first, about his well-being, and then muttering something about blood vengeance. He would have responded if Spike hadn't showed up, as he always did, to hustle her out of the room, leaving him alone once again. Several other people had stopped by to offer their sympathy, but he had simply ignored their well-wishes. He didn't care if everyone whom he was sharing a roof with had lost someone. This was his loss, and his alone.

Rolling over, Sheldon breathed deeply, trying to convince himself he could still smell her.

If he could go back to the day he met her, he wouldn't have bothered mocking Leonard for his efforts. He would have strode across that hall and locked himself in with her in her tiny apartment. He would have forgotten about everything else that used to matter, because none of it mattered anyway, as it turned out.

* * *

When what passed as dawn broke, he was off the bed, seated on the floor, a feverish light in his eyes. Scraps of paper surrounded him as his hands flew over his writing pad, scribbling formulas and drawing diagrams, visual depictions of cells and genomes.

Truly, he almost regretted staking Leonard, although what he had done was necessary – Penny's safety was paramount. Is paramount, he reminded himself. There was always a chance she wasn't gone. The point is, perhaps he could have saved Leonard.

If a human could be transformed into a vampire through something as simple as blood transfusion, there had to be a formula, a technique of reversing it. It was all in his head, if only he could find the right balance of chemicals.

Leaving the room once, he approached Spike who had just returned from another rescue op. with a new survivors, and asked imperiously if he could have a blood sample.

"What for?" Spike frowned.

"For my experiment of course." He said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I'm convinced that with a little time and some effort, I can solve this riddle."

Spike continued to look at him in confusion.

"If Penny is still out there." Sheldon swallowed. "I can save her. I'm sure of it."

As his confusion quickly melted into a sort of sympathy and pity, Sheldon forced himself not to react.

"Sheldon, once a person is turned, nothing short of a half-arsed prophecy can reverse the change." Spike hesitated. "That is…_if_ she were turned. There's always a chance Gunn didn't…"

"You don't know Penny." Sheldon shook his head violently. "I cannot foresee her going gently into that proverbial good night, although how anyone can mistake the night as 'good' at this point is either blind or has gone completely insane."

"Neither can I," Spike said quietly, rubbing a shoulder that seemed just that little bit out of joint. "But mate, listen to me…"

"Will you give me a sample or not?" Sheldon demanded stiffly.

"No." Spike snapped. "I will not bleed myself for something so pointless."

"Fine." Sheldon spun on his heel and returned to his quarters, bitter in the knowledge that using force on Spike wasn't an option. Settling himself back in his spot, he picked up the blunt pencil he had been using.

Only to find that he had nothing left to write.

* * *

On the third night, a small horde descended upon the survivors.

As Spike had predicted, they managed to evade every single trap that had been carefully laid.

Sheldon listened to the chaos happening, detached and uninterested. Until the moment she stood before him, pale and magnificent.

"Hey sweetie," she smiled, her teeth white and perfect as before.

"Hey." He said calmly, watching her, not making a single move to protect himself.

* * *

Even though her heart was a cold, dead thing, she couldn't stop it from hurting as she took in his appearance. He looked even more unkempt than usual, still wearing the same clothes he had on that night in the mall. The hollowness in his eyes drew her closer, making her desperate to reach out and give him the comfort he so needed.

"Come with me if you want to live," she quipped. Her stomach twisted. She was still hungry, even though she'd fed a second ago; there was still traces of blood lingering in her mouth, some of it splattered on her soiled clothing.

"Terminator reference?" He responded. "What has death made of you?"

"Free, Sheldon." She laughed, tossing her head back in heady pleasure as she luxuriated in the sensation of newfound strength coursing through her. "All that fear, all that anger and frustration…gone. Nothing but this feeling, like I'm soaring…"

Her body slunk closer.

"I can give that to you," she murmured. "We can be together, forever. No more running, no more hiding…how would you like that for a change?"

"You'd just damn him." Spike said from behind.

"Shut up Spike, you pathetic piece of shit." She snarled, turning to face him with her game face on. "Don't think Gunn didn't tell me how we ended up here in Hell, you and Angel playing God with our lives..."

"I suppose we all have our version of events." He leaned against the doorframe casually as if there weren't several bodies just two feet away, staring accusingly at him for failing to protect them. "But let's stick to the subject. If you turned him, what makes you think that what comes back will still love you?"

"It's _Sheldon_." She said with conviction.

"Trust me Pet. Just because you still feel the bond, doesn't mean _his _demon will." Spike said with infinite patience and sadness. "I've got some experience in that area."

Penny wavered.

"I'll take that chance." Sheldon said softly. Her eyes shifted back to her human green, as she flashed him a brilliant smile. "I can see no other way."

"Sorry mate. Not tonight." Spike grabbed Penny's shoulder and spun her around, stake already poised to strike. Neither of them saw the speed at which Sheldon moved, placing himself between the old and the young vampire until it was far too late.

"Fuck!" Spike cursed as his stake tore through bone and sinew, into a beating human heart. Penny's eyes widened in horror as Sheldon collapsed against her, eyes open in death. The gaping hole in his chest kept on bleeding unabated.

"You killed him!" she screamed, her voice roughened by fury and despair. In one moment, Spike could see that he had completely broken her, the way none of the horrors of the past months had done.

"I didn't mean to. I'm sorry," Spike said sincerely, struck with remorse.

With an animalistic growl, she jumped to her feet and ran at him, no longer caring for her own existence. So he did what he had meant to all along.

Standing in the room, now filled only with dust and the body of Sheldon Cooper, Spike sighed and retreated.

Outside, the sounds of battle were already dying down.

* * *

Penny almost dropped the cup of hot milk in her hands as she stumbled in her kitchen.

She blinked.

Last thing she remembered, Spike was shoving a stake through her chest, and she could feel, literally feel, her body disintegrating into ash. Carefully, she set her mug down on her counter and ran to the bathroom, relieving her stomach's contents. When there was nothing left to dispel, she stumbled to her feet and switched on the tap, staring in confusion as clear water flowed out. Finally, she bent down and took a sip. A sip became a gulp, and she kept drinking, trying to get the taste of sick out of her mouth…trying to rid herself of the taste of blood.

Someone was at her door.

"Penny,"

_Knock, knock, knock._

"Penny,"

_Knock, knock, knock._

"Pen.."

The door opened before it could continue. On the other side, Sheldon stood, fist still posed for a third knock. Instead of completing his ritual, he pulled her flush against his body and captured her mouth in a searing kiss.

"What just happened?" she asked at last when they pulled apart.

"I don't know. Spike killed me. And then I was sitting at my desk, still conducting that raid…"

Hand in hand, they gingerly approached the window and looked outside. The sky was a normal indigo, the moon a sliver of white. People were stumbling in the street, staring upwards in wonder. Soft cries of confusion drifted upwards, but there was no sign of anyone struggling or hurt. Bodies did not line the gutters and the tentacles that had held Los Angeles County for months were absent.

"Sheldon…you're the smart one." She started.

"I…"

Her cell phone started ringing. Giving Sheldon a significant look, she pounced on it. The Caller ID reflected a single name. Carefully, she pressed the green button and held the phone to her ear.

"Leonard?" she asked tentatively.

"Oh God. You're alive!" he said in a rush.

Sheldon snatched the phone from her as her knees began to buckle.

"I'm not convinced this isn't some kind of cruel trick." he stated, running back to the window, his fingers gripping at the sill so tightly she could see the white of his knuckles from where she was crumpled on the ground. "Are you in fact my roommate, or are you some demon trying to fuck with our minds? I warn you, I've taken out more than a few of your kind now."

Penny had been holding her breath for months; she couldn't start breathing again if she tried.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 5: If The Silence Takes You

_

* * *

You can check out anytime you want_

_But you can never leave._

* * *

"Your mother would make a fortune if she moved out here," Penny said to Leonard, chewing on her dumpling. "A whole section of California, remembering things that never happened,"

Losing months, but in fact, losing only a second…she had almost collapsed in hysterics, when she realized that everything that occurred, every last bloody, horrible event that transpired took place in the space of a single second.

* * *

"_You enjoyed some of it…you can lie to them, but you can't lie to yourself sweetie."_

* * *

Leonard almost smiled as he fiddled with his food. Sheldon stared at him somewhat suspiciously, but continued picking at his Tangerine Chicken. Watching his fingers twitching restlessly, Penny knew he was only an inch away from reaching for a sword, to test if Leonard was indeed, human.

It had been two weeks since everything returned to status quo. Nothing had changed, and yet everything was fundamentally different. Sheldon now lay in bed with his shotgun leaning against the wall within arm's reach. Beside him, Penny stayed up every night, fingers clasped loosely around her stake. In the silence, they could hear Leonard shuffling at this computer desk, trying to lose himself in some other online universe.

Sheldon hadn't even touched a single computer or console game since the 'reset', as he referred to it. Penny suspected one alternate universe had been enough for him, for the rest of his life. She didn't blame him.

* * *

"_Remember how alive you felt. Remember the thrill of the hunt, the pleasure in the…"_

* * *

"_Shut up,"_ Penny replied fiercely. _Shut the fuck up."_

Sometimes, when she blinked, she expected to be transported back to the warehouse, splitting into a billion particles of dust. Sheldon's body would still be sprawled behind her, staring emptily into space. Instead, when she opened her eyes again, she found her body going through the routines of life. Watching television, waitressing, doing her nails…everything seemed normal, even if none of it felt real.

"Has anyone heard from Bernadette by the way?" she asked hopefully.

Howard peered at her out of red-rimmed eyes. There wasn't any need to sit close to him to smell the scent of stale booze which clung to his clothing and his breath. Beside him, there was an empty seat that once belonged to Raj, who had taken the first flight out of LA available, back to Delhi. Penny would have envied him that privilege but for the incessant need to be within ten feet of Sheldon at all times.

"Guess she hasn't been coming into work huh?" Leonard spoke up. His face crumpled into a tapestry of anguish as he added, "Leslie came in today. She tried to kill herself with acid she keeps in her lab…I tried to go see her at the hospital…Jesus Penny." He couldn't keep his sobs in as his chopsticks fell to the ground. "She saw my face and then she..."

Earlier, a girl had walked into the restaurant, taken one look at Penny and started screaming. The last time the blonde waitress had seen her was when she was draining the younger woman quickly and painfully, tearing at the soft flesh with glee, laughing cruelly at the agonizing pain she was inflicting.

"_She tasted so sweet, is what you really remember. The way her flesh parted like warm butter..."_

Just the reminder made her put her food down on the coffee table. No matter what the state of reality was now, Penny had no doubt in her mind that everything that had happened was in fact, real…it sickened her every time, to remember how much she had _enjoyed _the way blood had slipped down her throat, filling her with an unimagined sense of power.

"_Tell me you don't want to feel that way again_," the demon in her head whispered to Penny in her own voice. "_Tell me you don't want that kind of high again, that you don't want to feel like a God, the lives of these weak little humans in your hands. Remember how you owned the night, and feared nothing. It was better than sex, better than meth…the heat that flowed from their arteries, filling you with nothing but this fucking amazing…"_

"I have to…I need to go." She stood up abruptly.

"_Unless you like living like this. Pathetic waitress, talentless hack, whore…"_

Barely a minute later, Sheldon stood up, following her back to her own home, leaving Leonard and Howard staring at the food getting cold in front of them.

* * *

It was only a few days later when Spike appeared once more, this time, on television.

"Oh my God." Penny said, mouth agape.

"It appears that the age of ignorance of what 'goes bump in the night' is absolutely over." Sheldon observed, as the gossip channel ran a report in regards to the peroxide blonde's latest hijinks.

"This is going to make his head swell to the size of…well, his ego is going to be about the same size as Sheldon's, really." Penny joked.

To her surprise, almost everyone in the room smiled.

"I don't think that's possible." Leonard let out a small laugh.

"If you are inferring that I have a high opinion of myself, let me remind you…" Sheldon Cooper launched into a mini-rant about his high regard for Sheldon Cooper.

When she caught his eye, she could see that he didn't really mean anything he was saying at all. What he was really trying to do was to force some normalcy back into their lives. She loved him, more than she had ever loved anyone in her life, but it still hurt that he had lost an innocence she didn't expect she'd miss.

"Who is this guy?" Howard asked unexpectedly. Everyone froze. It was the first time he had spoken in days, and his voice seemed rusty with disuse.

"He kind of helped some survivors. We used to do re-con missions together, him and I." Penny said at last, leaving out the part where he took both herself and Sheldon out.

"He's a good vampire?" Howard asked in disbelief.

"And you did what?" Leonard sounded impressed.

"Yeah. He's…got a soul or something. Like this other vampire apparently!" Penny pointed at the screen where the vampire Angel was currently being featured.

"Jesus. Everything's gone nuts." Leonard muttered, staring at the coverage.

She didn't know how to respond because he was right.

* * *

CNN started talking about the Slayer Army. Not just one Slayer, as Penny had once understood it, but hundreds, maybe thousands of them, apparently hell-bent on humanity's destruction.

MTV launched the Harmony Bites reality program, and the world watched and cheered as she murdered a Slayer on live TV in the middle of the mansion they had given her. All around, well-dressed young people trying to get famous clapped enthusiastically, eager to get close to the demon.

Suddenly, vampires were misunderstood victims of society, driven underground by the vicious presence of the slayers, by discrimination and ignorance. They weren't so different from humans, the papers stated; they just wanted to live in peace, be left alone…just because they lived on blood, didn't mean they enjoyed killing.

"_The killing's only half the fun anyway. If you do it right, you could make them scream for hours. Remember when you first awoke, the first thing you saw…remember how you made the boy scream, and scream, even after you'd skinned his arms and ripped apart his face…ah the sound of bones cracking…nothing quite like it is there, as they shatter under your bare hands…"_

That was the definitive moment when she realized that they hadn't yet escaped hell. No, they were simply sliding back in at a much slower pace.

"_And I'll be waiting for you babe. It'll be just like old times."_

* * *

He kissed her long and ardently, savouring the slide of her lips against his, the way her body moved under his hands. Slowly, he eased her sweater off, taking care to brush his finger tips against her shoulder blades. Caressing the angles and curves of her body, he lost himself in the cadence of her breathe, the softness of her being.

Sheldon took his time with her, the way he never could have in that other place, where every second lost could have meant the difference between now and eternity. He lingered, kissing and nipping softly, until she was arching against his mouth, begging him to stop his teasing.

After, as they lay in her bed, he looked worriedly at her distant gaze. It wasn't that he doubted the way she felt about him. How could he? Even as a demon, even with the loss of her soul, her first thought had been of him, of rescuing and comforting him.

As his fingers intertwined with hers, he couldn't keep at bay, the fear that he might lose her yet.

* * *

"We don't have to do this." Sheldon said quietly. He was wearing a nice shirt for once, and it didn't have a single Marvel character printed on it.

"I can't not." Penny said, taking one last glance through her purse. She looked resplendent in her strapless dress, her golden hair hanging loose over her tanned shoulders.

"We can drive away…let someone else take care of this problem." He continued.

"Sheldon…" she sighed. "You don't have to come with me. This is something I have to do. I don't want you getting hurt because I've suddenly developed an overwhelmingly stupid hero complex."

"You're not even a Slayer. She's killed one of them. Do you know what she can do to you?" he asked harshly, staring straight ahead.

"Sure." Penny shrugged, trying to mask her nerves. "But what can she do to me that I've never been through before?"

He fidgeted.

"I've never actually said it." He breathed. "But you already know this: I love you. I lost you once, and that was more than I could bear. If I have to see it happen again…"

"I love you too. Watching _you_ die was the worst thing that could have happened to me…" she murmured. "And this was _after_ I got killed."

He leaned over, his fingers tangling in her hair as he smashed his lips against hers.

"Promise me you'll stay strong." He demanded breathlessly.

"You promise me the same." She held him close, wishing that life had turned out different. That she could walk away from this.

Someone tapped on their window. It was Leonard, indicating that the doors to Harmony's mansion were open, and it was time.

With one last kiss, the couple stepped out of their car.

To their surprise, they were greeted by the sight of Spike leaning against a black DeSoto parked not far away.

"Did you nits think I was going to miss something like this?" he asked.

"How did you know?" Penny asked, not exactly unhappy to see him, not exactly pleased either.

"Your friend there, Wonder Geek 2.0." he nodded towards Leonard who shifted awkwardly. "He found me using some…techy method."

"Let's face it – we don't stand a chance without some serious muscle." Leonard sounded guilty.

Sheldon fell in step with Leonard as they started walking towards the front gates of the mansion where Howard waited looking so awkward he seemed almost normal.

"How do you do it?" Penny asked Spike after a beat, as they followed a small distance behind.

"Do what luv?" he asked.

"You have a soul, and you have a demon. How do you live every day not going mad, listening to its voice?" she questioned.

"Truth is, I almost did go mad." He sighed, and stopped walking, turning to face her. "Listen here pet, you don't have a demon inside your head. What you're hearing…that's just an echo. It's not too late to turn around, if this is some stupid suicide attempt because you're trying to shut out that voice…"

Penny looked at the three young men ahead. Howard, the lost but unbroken boy; Leonard, forever trying to be someone's hero…and Sheldon, who held her heart in his slender fingers. Her boys, she thought.

She remembered the faces of those she had murdered in another lifetime, the scarred visage of Leslie Winkle in this one.

"Don't be stupid." She said, flipping her hair back. "This isn't about me. This is about staking a vamp in tacky shoes."

Spike smirked.

"Now come on," Penny announced loudly and brightly. "I aim to misbehave."

**The End.**


End file.
